Day 1 (March 27): Agenda: Presentations and field visit to Doyogena
Day 2 (March 28): Chaired byH.E Dr. Gebregziabher Gebreyohannes
Agenda No. 1: Lessons learned, concerns and Q&A from the different presentations and Doyogena field visit and experience sharing from the South region
Agenda No. 2: Upscaling CBBP throughout the regions in Ethiopia
Agenda No. 1
Lessons learned:
To make CBBP more efficient, hiring permanent enumerators is very important. We’ve noticed that the enumerators in the South Region are permanent employees and they do their jobs full time efficiently.
We have very good breeds in our region like Washera and Abergelle. Enough has been done regarding the research. Now we need to make national and regional plans and work closely with extension workers.
Regarding artificial insemination a lot is expected from the extension and we need to do a lot and have taken assignment. We have to transfer it from research to extension. There is commitment on the side of the farmers.
We need to contribute our share to further develop and upscale other breeds. We have so many breeds (Begiet, Horro, Washera) that can be marketed and contribute to the livelihood of the country. The Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) is ready to contribute what we can to make this a reality.
We have seen what the problems are related to CBBP and the assessment was very good. It gives us enough information also others who plan to start these activities.
There is a lot of demand for ram but we are not able to deliver enough amount of ram at this moment. The plan in the South region (Konso, Doyogena, Gumer, Bonga) is to deliver 10,200 rams for one year. It is almost impossible for us to deliver this amount. Last year only we delivered is almost 1,100 best rams. So, artificial insemination is very critical for this region.
Concerns:
Have reservation on using hormones as synchronisation. Personally, I agree with artificial insemination but would be also good to use feeding mechanism as a method of synchronising.
During the field visit, we noticed some abnormalities on testicles but expected the farmers to have identified the rams which have testicle problems.
We need to give attention to the management of the whole system
Some areas are degraded and there is not enough rainfall for cultivation and the animals are moving from place to place which creates constraints for our data collection.
Regarding trait preference, in Ethiopia we have more than 10 sheep types. If we are going to develop a breeding scheme for those more than 10 sheep types, we have to cluster our sheep breeds and we should be able to identify traits of important breeds and develop a CBBP guide accordingly. Otherwise it is going to difficult to develop a breeding scheme for every breed of sheep.
Suggestions
It is better to rename Community Based Breeding Program (CBBP) to Community Based Conservation and Breeding Program (CBCBP) as it makes it complete.
We have to focus on the way forward on the scheme for building the rams that have served their purpose
Sustainability is extremely important. In our field, people always talk about sustainability, but sustainability doesn’t mean that farmers have to carry out breeding programs without support. Even in developed countries breeding programs are always supported by government. So, in our case the issues is a little different. Ultimately, we want this cooperative to be self-sufficient, but government should be there to support. So, it is going to be a lengthy process and we should be aiming to achieve that
Questions and Answers:
Question no. 1
Answer
Concerning markets, we need to focus more than the major festivals (like Christmas, Easter etc.…). The markets are full of sheep during these times. So, the normal breeding program can’t satisfy that market and we need to focus more than these festivals like processing etc. for the breeding program to be successful
We agree that markets shouldn’t focus necessarily during festive periods. ICARDA is working on that. Farmers keep one or two animals per year for festive seasons, but they need to think about markets throughout the year. The profit may not be as high as they get during the festive periods but it is a continuous supply and that also contributes to the abattoirs. Because our abattoirs are working at 30% capacity and there is a huge market and the farmers would get a consistent benefit
Question no. 2
Answer
We have breed characterization made in Ethiopia and have produced a catalogue. In that catalogue, we don’t have Doyogena as a breed. On the presentation made, Doyogena was presented as a population and on another presentation, it was presented as a breed. The question is I want to know if Doyogena is characterized as a breed to start as a new breed for community conservation program
Adello breed is getting popular and 70% of Adello is from Doyogena. We need to revise our data catalogue, and this is a very sensitive issue.
Question no.3
Answer
Is there a study that was made on the success and failures of CBBP in Ethiopia – is there a concrete data collected on this?
ICARDA has produced a lot of documentation in the area of small ruminants in our database. We have published a lot of materials on success/ failures of small ruminants (some issues related to cross breeding. (You can also refer to the paper reviewed by Tesfaye from ICARDA)
ICARDA has also produced lots of documents on situation analysis of the small ruminant sector and policy document is coming out very soon. Everything is available on our website.
Question no.4
Answer
From the presentation made by Tesfaye from ICARDA, we haven’t seen any trial how the rams perform when they are taken to other areas. These things have to be taken into consideration. How should we should use those rams which have already served their purpose there – in other areas for breeding purpose or other purpose. This should be taken into consideration.
This issue is very important and usually it is said that the better you get in dissemination the lesser you have control on the health side. We shouldn’t promote CBBP without health and improvement in these issues. It is also very important to work on this certification issues because this is model of spreading rams but also everything. The person who wants to buy some product wants some kind of security that the product is better and safe. While certification is one of the issues that we really need to work the ministry, and extension to set that up because that can’t be done by the research. Ministry needs to be champion in this issue not research.
Question no.5
Answer
On the sustainability issue in the South region, it was presented that they have permanent employees who are taking care of the data collection and the routine monitoring aspects. But this should be further strengthened. And should be also supported by a sort of controlled nucleus herd scheme. It is very surprising to see a sheep weighing 23 kgs at 6 months age. Our export market is demanding such growth as well and we have to target our export market as well and from our value chain framework presented. It is also better if you target because the government is also expecting to contribute something for the export sector. In that regard such performance is useful for the export market as well.
The involvement of the government for the local market is very important. ICARDA is developing a business model and we are working on 3 at the moment. On one of the business models, it was mentioned that farmers need to get price for breeding animals. Direct market link with abattoirs need to be created so that the abattoirs can exactly ask what is the animal they want
In the Konso area, we are trying to set that up. It has a little back and forth but hopefully we will get our marketing very soon. There were a number of technical issues and those need to be identified in detail at a later stage.
Question no.6
Answer
From the presentation made on the 1st day of the workshop, the management aspect was not in the recording format. Most of the traits that we have worked on are not hereditary except some such as growth. Others are manipulated by management. So, we should give importance to the management aspect and the recording and finally we should be able to calculate economics. If we don’t have such record, we can’t say much about economics. So, our recording system should be holistic.
CBBP alone is not enough it needs also the management issues. That is something which we implemented and that’s why we are using the value chain approach that we are not looking only at improving breeding but also looking at other aspects like health.
ICARDA is working on the financial feasibility study of breeding programs and the study is nearly completed and will share with you the document as soon as it is completed.
Question no.7
Answers
Regarding the movement of the rams’ form one area to the other zones or other areas are they going to other improvement program or are they just being distributed.
For example, the (cross) inter-breed between Arsi/Bale breed and Kereyu produced a very small breed between the two with known physical characters
Another example is the cross breed between Begaiet and Arado, Medenez produced less performance
In the South region we have prepared a modality map by involving extension. We have 41 cooperatives working on breed movement and the other areas are prepared for distribution of these animals because in other areas we don’t have much potential to work on them. The other option is cross-breeding with our local animals (we are also doing that). We also did impact assessment on how the breeds are performing once they are distributed by a team including MSc student.
If we have characterized more breeds and if we found that there is a genetic difference between the two breeds, then we don’t allow movement of the rams. But if the genetic difference between the two breeds is not that distinct then there is still a possibility. Because we have to first characterize the breeds and if they are different then we should not use the rams for cross-breeding purpose.
The ministry is also working a lot on current generation but we also have to think of the next generation by making sure that our genetic resources are conserved and that’s a common agenda. We have to separately discuss and make some recommendations for the future.
The distribution of Bonga from South was made without a very clear evidence of the suitability of Bonga rams in other areas. That should have come very clear – we should have done a very detailed study before distribution. We have got a student now looking at the performance of Bonga sheep in the region how it is performing. And that will give us a very good lesson for the other distributions. The distribution has somehow gone out of our hand before we even produced evidence. But the suitability map that ICARDA produced (what Jorum presented on the first day) could help us a lot in trying to show where Bonga could be distributed in the region and that will give us a clear idea particularly on the physical distribution. But that has to be backed up by scientific evidence.
There are other studies which have been done in terms of genetic characterization and how close the breeds are because sometimes they are different breeds, but they share a lot of common background. So, that is where these scientific studies help a lot in shaping what we are doing.
There are ample movements of sheep, cattle and crops in Ethiopia. When it comes to livestock, we need to sit down together really work out how to lead and what directions to follow. We are not at this point certain that Bonga sheep are genetically structured differently from the Horro. Most of the sheep share similar market shade because of geographic movement as they are politically within the same zone and there are no boundaries between the regions. It is not market bounded. If you go to the south, it is also the same thing. We are not sure about Adello and Doyogena. So, whatever evidence we have, to date we need to know that we can improve this on traits that are considered as important and even suitability maps need to be worked on very carefully (not just based on temperature)
We need to take other parameters very carefully and identify social and economic attributes as well because adoption is affected seriously on socio-economic situations as well. So, these things need to be considered very carefully and need to be worked out and should be an agenda for next meetings. Hopefully the ministry will take care of that.
Experience sharing from the South region
The enumerators are permanent workers – that is a very important point and we had some community-based cooperatives while we have permanent workers like in Bonga and Doyogena. We also had some challenges in some cooperatives. All the things are related to leadership especially at the woreda level and zones. For example, in Sidama zone Aberra sheep Community based breeding program was established almost at the same time as Doyogena. We have 4-5 enumerators that are permanent staff, but the problem was leaders were not giving enough attention for their resource and potential and they were looking for other technologies from outside not locally. But very recently (2 years back) with the change of leaders once our researchers were appointed as department head of livestock & fisheries in Sidama zone now the productivity and the benefit of the farmers and everything started moving again.
Farmers should benefit from the program if not we can’t go further. They have to get a benefit from that conservation or breeding program. If they get some income, then they think about next plan. They may not understand everything sometimes but as they have a lot of demand at home.
What we did was that the best rams should move out after serving the community. We have 3 ranks for rams: 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The 1st ranked should stay more longer within the community because they have to duplicate themselves since they are selected as the best and leave some best-off springs in the community. After serving they are taken and are sold to other areas. The way we are doing this is, we have a modality for the region. We have a map for the regions showing which breed should go where. Now we have 41 active CBBP programs on sheep and goats in the south. Bonga sheep should go to areas which have very rich forage and feed otherwise Bonga sheep have no resistance/challenge to face feed shortage. But when we come to Doyogena, feed shortage area and we mapped it out and trained our extension colleagues at early stage. We even prepared a package in Amharic how to even establish CBBP and this package has been distributed to every kebele in the region. Therefore, these are some of our experience which helped us to succeed.
The most important thing for beginners is leadership. It is not research centers or research institutions or extension only who do the job and we have to make a joint effort to be successful.
Most of you have mentioned that enumerators should be permanent employees. And we did our work on that human resource and public service bureau has also worked on that and the contribution of our bureau head and finance and economic development bureau had made contribution for that as well. Research center structure this organogram extends up to kebele. (there is no structure at Kebele level for research centers) But we had to convince them, and they understood us and took this and enumerators should be treated as permanent employees so for SARI we thought these enumerators should upgrade themselves (they are 10th grade students and completed 10th grade – we should secure their job. We have to support them logistically like by providing motor bikes etc. and other things and refreshment and other trainings should be given to them as incentive system.
The government offices like finance for budget, bureau of livestock and agriculture for extending the structure up to kebele level and public service bureau should be convinced. That depends on our energy to argue and convince them.
Keeping rams is a very tuff job for the community members as the rams are restless and fight and have to manage the rams. For this the community members and what we did was out of the total profit from the sale of the rams 75% should go to the owner who have been keeping them.
We shouldn’t be bureaucratic, and work hard because of climate change, globalisation, urbanisation and other factors. So, it is time and we have to utilize the ample genetic resource that we have.
Summary from the presentations and field visit by H.E. Dr. Gebregizabher Gebreyohannes
CBBP is workable in line with government’s agenda. And we have got an assurance from the field trip in Doyogena, that CBBP is successful in the South region.
Regarding recoding my observation was that only the enumerator record the data and the farmer has to also record as part of the record book and he has to know what his record looks like and the details. Probably that is an area that we have to work on. So, that by recording, the farmer has also got knowledge and transfer that knowledge to his children.
In relation to ram distribution, my concern is with venereal disease (we have to make sure that whenever we use natural mating venereal disease will be another area we should take care of during ram distribution and everybody has raised this. Still my comment is if we can do a certain genetic analysis between the two populations then that might guide us to how we should distribute the ram (that is an area for assignment)
Regarding sustainability, it is sure that ICARDA project will phase out after few years. So, we are the ones who should sustain this experience. So how to sustain and also the exit strategy has to be worked out starting now. Otherwise we don’t expect ICARDA to continue forever. So the only option is we have to own it, we have to support our farmers, capture all the experiences and guide our farmers in scaling out and sustaining this experience.
As far as I understand, this experience should, it is starting to change the livelihood of our farmers, so this has to be sustained and we have to work out on the sustainability and this is an agenda for all of us.
Market is a matter of scale. If the production is at higher scale in terms of quantity, then it is easy for us to export or link to the export market. But if the production is limited, then we will be forced to be limited to the local (domestic) market. So, market is a matter of scale and we have to work on more places, engage more farmers to meet the production of the Yirgalem industrial park or and Ziway Alana export abattoirs. For example, the Alana export abattoirs requires 8,000-10,000 small ruminants per day. So, let alone from Doyogena even from all over the country will be facing shortage. Also other livestock industry parks are coming around Afar (Chinese companies) who still look for more inputs. But if we are limited with the number of sheep with cooperatives with existing ones then the market will be limited to the local market and so we have to target better market and also we have to produce for the market.
Agenda No. 2How do we upscaling CBBP throughout the regions in Ethiopia?
Suggestions from different participants
The technical guideline prepared by ICARDA needs to be revised as it would give a technical backup
There is no need to increase the number of CBBP villages. The already established CBBP villages can be used as a source of ram distribution.
The perception of the farmers on the mating ratio needs to change and farmers need technical support in this aspect.
Need to clearly identify who should take the lead as the willingness is there from the regions and the livestock bureau.
The work should be done at a national level. We need to develop a national strategy and action plan by engaging the concerned stakeholders.
Need to refer to previous studies made regarding CBBP which can be as a base for upscaling.
Need modern data collection mechanism especially in pastoralist/dry areas which is challenging to collect data.
Further study needs to be made on the character of goats as it is done in sheep and this should be included in the strategy.
Need to identify the responsibilities of each stakeholder properly.
The challenges related to finance, manpower, transportation need to be addressed.
Need to work on proper identification of breeds
Need to look at the bigger picture to have an impact.
Summary and conclusion by H.E. Dr. Gebregziabher Gebreyohannes
Need to target on the breeds when we think of upscaling (we have already identified around 10 sheep and 10 goat breeds).
The Ministry of Livestock and Fish will take the lead and will take this assignment and will design a national strategy involving all stakeholders and will call a national workshop
ICARDA will assist by working on the technical details
Regarding resources (finance, transport etc. ) we know that resources are limited but as much as possible, but we need to keep up with the pace we are going (We can work on that at the Ministry and regional level). If we prove ourselves with the limited resources that we have we might get other funds and we need to convince decision makers.
CBBP can be scaled out if the ministry and the regions own it. Stakeholders like ICARDA will only support us until the project phases out. In the meantime, we can use ICARDA to work on our side and guide us so that we stay in focus
In order to make significant change, we have to look at the bigger picture and be result oriented and expect the next visit to be either at Menz or Horro.
Official closing by H.E. Dr. Gebregziabher Gebreyohannes
Thanked ICARDA, South region, representatives from other regions, ILRI and participants of the for attending the workshop for their active participation and for organising the workshop and Arega research Centre team for organising the field day.
SmaRT Ethiopia project workshop and field day on small ruminant community based breeding program (CBBP)
Hosaena, Ethiopia
27–28 March 2018
Objectives:
Agenda
Day 1 March 27, 2018
Day 2 March 28, 2018 (half day)
List of participants
Photos
Presentations
Blog post
==
==
Meeting notes
Day 1 (March 27): Agenda: Presentations and field visit to Doyogena
Day 2 (March 28): Chaired byH.E Dr. Gebregziabher Gebreyohannes
Agenda No. 1
Lessons learned:Concerns:
Suggestions
Questions and Answers:
ICARDA has also produced lots of documents on situation analysis of the small ruminant sector and policy document is coming out very soon. Everything is available on our website.
In the Konso area, we are trying to set that up. It has a little back and forth but hopefully we will get our marketing very soon. There were a number of technical issues and those need to be identified in detail at a later stage.
ICARDA is working on the financial feasibility study of breeding programs and the study is nearly completed and will share with you the document as soon as it is completed.
For example, the (cross) inter-breed between Arsi/Bale breed and Kereyu produced a very small breed between the two with known physical characters
Another example is the cross breed between Begaiet and Arado, Medenez produced less performance
The ministry is also working a lot on current generation but we also have to think of the next generation by making sure that our genetic resources are conserved and that’s a common agenda. We have to separately discuss and make some recommendations for the future.
We need to take other parameters very carefully and identify social and economic attributes as well because adoption is affected seriously on socio-economic situations as well. So, these things need to be considered very carefully and need to be worked out and should be an agenda for next meetings. Hopefully the ministry will take care of that.
Summary from the presentations and field visit by H.E. Dr. Gebregizabher Gebreyohannes
Agenda No. 2 How do we upscaling CBBP throughout the regions in Ethiopia?
Suggestions from different participants
Summary and conclusion by H.E. Dr. Gebregziabher Gebreyohannes
Official closing by H.E. Dr. Gebregziabher Gebreyohannes